Antoinette remained during an hour in a state of mute languor; then a violent fever took possession of her. When the physician who had been sent for arrived, M. Langis accompanied him into the chamber of the sick girl. She was delirious: seated upright, she kept continually passing her hand over her brow; she sought to efface the taint of a kiss she had received one moonlight night, and the impression in her hair of the flapping of a bat’s wings that had caught in her hood. These two things were confounded in her memory. From time to time she said: “Where is my portrait? Give me my portrait.”
It was about ten o’clock when M. Langis called on Samuel Brohl, who was not astonished to see him appear; he had hoped he would come. Samuel had regained self-possession. He was calm and dignified. However, the tempest through which he had gone had left on his features some vestige of its passage. His lips quivered, and his beautiful chestnut locks curled like serpents about his temples, and gave his head a Medusa-like appearance.
He said to Camille: “Where and when? Our seconds will undertake the arrangement of the rest.”
“You mistake, monsieur, the motive of my visit,” replied M. Langis. “I am grieved to destroy your illusions, but I did not come to arrange a meeting with you.”
“Do you refuse to give me satisfaction?”
“What satisfaction do I owe you?”
“You insulted me.”
“When?”
“And you said: ‘The day, the place, the weapons. I leave all to your choice.’”
M. Langis could not refrain from smiling. “Ah! you at last acknowledge that your fainting-fit was comedy?” he rejoined.